United States uses inhumane intelligence
The Washington Post describes \extraordinary renditions,"" where the Centrial Intelligence Agency regularly hands terrorist suspects, innocent or guilty, over to Third World countries such as Syria for torture and interrogation. U.S. officials describe this practice as very useful.
The most infamous of these ""renditions"" is now Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation last year took him prisoner when he was changing planes in New York.
The United States took him in custody back to Jordan and Syria where he was jailed and tortured for the next year and forced to sign false confessions, now being leaked to smear him.
What is the human cost of these
""renditions?"" How many people, innocent of any crime, get sent by the United States to places where they are tortured to improve U.S. intelligence by some small fraction? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
How many have already died? Sorry, it's top secret. But the real cost of these ""renditions"" is not just borne by the victims.
U.S. democracy is suffering. International law, which forbids deporting to countries which torture, is suffering. Human rights are suffering. The U.S. reputation, its best tool to make friends, is suffering.
The world has become a more dangerous place since Sept. 11. There are more terrorist actions now than before the war on terrorism. Unfortunately, many of these terrorist actions are being performed in the name of U.S. National Security as innocents are imprisoned or tortured because of the color of their skin, the place they were born, or because the brother of a friend witnessed a lease.
The United States, so injured and infuriated by Sept. 11, has to realize that it cannot spread democracy and freedom around the world by tactics which arraign it with the Gestapo.
